Do Not Weep. Do Not Wax Indignant. Understand.

Posted on December 2, 2015

Last month, the world witnessed mindless bloodshed, a perversion of religion that materialized into pure evil. A gigantic shadow hung over Paris and pulled the Eiffel Tower completely out of the ground, as if it were a beautiful flower, and broke it in two. Then it broke it down even more, into a million little pieces, and sent the pieces flying toward the eyes of the world like malevolent Frisbees in the summer air until each of us became blinded by rage and heartache.

A few days after a series of terrorist attacks shook the Western world to the core, killing 130 people in Paris, it is as if we are stuck in a snow globe and banging our heads against the glass. We are either all shook up by world tragedies or inflicting harm through ignorance. At the end of the day, all of us are like sheep, wandering through the wilderness on a desert road, our heavy hearts pulling our fleecy bodies toward the ground. All we can do is slow dance with espresso fossils and Polaroid bones in the carbon footprints of those who have come before us.

“We don’t belong here,” we murmur to each other.

“We’re confused,” we whisper to each other.

“I just wanna cry,” you keep telling yourself.

We are not close to finding any answers and are a little desperate for the intimacy of knowing that everything will be okay, but the world seems like an empty brain-bed; it could care less if we are at ease or not. There is no intimacy under the blankets of everyday living. We are cold. We are numb. What should we do? Maybe we should heed the words of Spinoza and “Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.” Is our lack of understanding holding us back from getting through tragedy with our hearts still attached to our shoulders? Are we not trying our best to understand everything wrong with the world? What should we do?